20 best movies like Ruthless People (1986)

Set in 1974, a pair of '60s radicals rely on their bomb-making skills on their way to becoming capitalists.

When three redneck brothers agree to help a woman save her son from an abusive father, they become targets on the run from an odd cast of characters.

In a sleepy bedroom community of LA's San Fernando Valley, the murder of a professional athlete by two hit men sets into motion a chain of events that puts the mundane lives of a dozen residents on a collision course. This clever tale tells the story of two hit men, a mistress, a nurse, a vindictive ex-wife, a wealthy art dealer and his lovelorn assistant, a suicidal writer and his dog, and a bitter cop and his partner.

A series of brutal murders puts the lives of three men on a collision course: The father of the latest victim now out for revenge, a vigilante police detective operating outside the boundaries of law, and the main suspect in the killings - a religious studies teacher arrested and released due to a police blunder.

An eccentric, if not charming Southern professor and his crew pose as a band in order to rob a casino, all under the nose of his unsuspecting landlord – a sharp old woman.

In small-town Texas, affable and popular mortician Bernie Tiede strikes up a friendship with Marjorie Nugent, a wealthy widow well known for her sour attitude. When she becomes controlling and abusive, Bernie goes to great lengths to remove himself from her grasp.

While on a seemingly routine job, a jaded hit man discovers that he's not the only one with his target in the crosshairs.

Two common criminals get more than they bargained for after kidnapping the wife of a corrupt real-estate developer who shows no interest in paying the $1 million dollar ransom for her safe return.

Larry Donner, an author with a cruel ex-wife, teaches a writing workshop in which one of his students, Owen, is fed up with his domineering mother. When Owen watches a Hitchcock classic that seems to mirror his own life, he decides to put the movie's plot into action and offers to kill Larry's ex-wife, if Larry promises to murder his mom. Before Larry gets a chance to react to the plan, it seems that Owen has already set things in motion.

While transporting a dying man to the hospital, two paramedics find a million dollars in cash sewn into his clothing. When the man dies, they decide to keep it, setting them on a path for a hellish night of violence and mayhem.

The stories of a missing wife, a couple of meth heads and an Elvis impersonator are connected by the items found in a small town's pawn shop.

A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

The Insane Clown Posse heads back to the Wild West in this prequel to BIG MONEY HUSTLAS. Nothing happens in the dusty town of Mud Bug without the approval of gambling magnate Big Baby Chips (Violent J), and the locals turn and run when his henchmen come out to play. But when swaggering sheriff Sugar Wolf (Shaggy 2 Dope) teaches the locals to fight back, Big Baby Chips and his gang head for the hills in a hail of gunfire.

Police investigate when a man having an affair with his brother's wife disappears suddenly.

Upstanding community leader Nils has just won an award for "Citizen of the Year" when he learns the news that his son has died of a heroin overdose. Suspecting foul play, Nils begins to investigate, and soon finds himself at the center of an escalating underworld gang war between Serbian drug dealers and a sociopathic criminal mastermind known only as “The Count.”

A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly.

Two romantically-engaged corporate spies team up to manipulate a corporate race to corner the market on a medical innovation that will reap huge profits and enable them to lead an extravagant lifestyle together.

Suzanne Stone wants to be a world-famous news anchor and she is willing to do anything to get what she wants. What she lacks in intelligence, she makes up for in cold determination and diabolical wiles. As she pursues her goal with relentless focus, she is forced to destroy anything and anyone that may stand in her way, regardless of the ultimate cost or means necessary.

From his hospital bed, a writer suffering from a skin disease hallucinates musical numbers and paranoid plots.

A mild-mannered secretary discovers that she has a talent for murder as she ascends the corporate ladder.

Christopher Gill is a psychotic killer who uses various disguises to trick and strangle his victims. Moe Brummel is a single and harassed New York City police detective who starts to get phone calls from the strangler and builds a strange alliance as a result. Kate Palmer is a swinging, hip tour guide who witnesses the strangler leaving her dead neighbor's apartment and sets her sights on the detective. Moe's live-in mother wishes her son would be a successful Jewish doctor like his big brother.

Gabriella, a Columbian immigrant, is obsessed with understanding violent crime. The current string of murders by "The Blue Blood Killer" of affluent Miami socialites provides her with fodder for her scrapbook of death. She lands a job with a post-murder cleaning service and during a Blue-Blood clean-up job, discovers evidence that police have overlooked.

A bigoted junkie cop suffering from bipolar disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way through the festive season in a bid to secure promotion and win back his wife and daughter.

A millionaire fakes a terminal illness to fleece his former girlfriends.

A man wakes up in an alley, bleeding and with no memory of who he is. He stumbles into a coffee shop and is befriended by a charitable ex-nun who is failing in her attempts to write marketable pornography.

A spoof of the late 80s and early 90s suspense thrillers and murder mysteries, including Basic Instinct, Sleeping With The Enemy, Cape Fear and others. A cop/attorney (yes he's both) is seduced by a woman while his wife is having an affair with a mechanic. Lots of other sublots and visual gags in the style of Naked Gun.

Four retired mobsters plan one last crime to save their retirement home.

Ray Pluto has many problems. He is satirized in the tabloids as the "loser cop." His partner is starting to seem suspiciously attracted to him. A pair of screenwriters across the hall keep bugging him for help. The superintendent of his building is stabbed by hoodlums hired by his own rebellious daughter. To top it off, a sexually aggressive chiropractor may just be Ray's undoing.

Kyle Fisher has one last night to celebrate life as a single man before marrying Laura, so he sets out to Vegas with four of his best buddies. But a drug and alcohol filled night on the town with a stripper who goes all the way, turns into a cold night in the desert with shovels when the stripper goes all the way into a body bag after dying in their bathroom. And that's just the first of the bodies to pile up before Kyle can walk down the aisle...

The intriguing relationship between three desperados, who try to kidnap a wealthy child in hope of turning their lives around.

Sam Clayton's marriage to ex-stripper Freddie comes about when she's strong-armed into the match by Red, a club proprietor who once did her a favor. But Freddie falls in love with Jjaks, Sam's brother, and the pair tries to escape the situation together. It isn't long before both Sam and Red catch up with them, resulting in threats against the two of them -- although tension also starts to build between Sam and Red.

Detective Guy Johnson's client, Willie Heywood, is framed for murder. While Guy hides him so he can catch the real killer, both of them are nabbed by the police, tried, convicted and sentenced to jail: Guy for a year with Willie to be executed. On the way to jail, Guy comes across a clue and escapes from the police.

A Broadway playwright puts murder in his plan to take credit for a student's script.

The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and child, he marries wealthy widows and then murders them. His crime spree eventually works against him when two particular widows break his normal routine.

A sultry woman joins an illiterate killer and a brainy hacker, both escaped convicts, to search for gold.

Recently fired and facing eviction, a new dad has his life turned upside down when he meets a wealthy couple who offer a path to financial security... but at a price.

A man who is being driven crazy by the noise in New York City decides to take vigilante action against it.

When a depressed woman is burglarized, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves alongside her obnoxious neighbor. But they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals.

A shady lawyer attempts a Christmas Eve crime, hoping to swindle the local mob out of some money. But his partner, a strip club owner, might have different plans for the cash.

A wealthy young man is conned into staging a fake kidnapping in order to be a hero and win the affection of a girl he's madly in love with. But when one of the hired kidnappers is accidentally killed during the charade, he's forced to actually save her life while not revealing that it's been a ruse all along.

A former mental patient's repressed anger reaches the boiling point, leading him to embark on a mission of revenge against the thugs who once subjected him to severe physical and mental trauma.

Mafia hitman Tommy Spinelli (Joe Pesci) is flying to San Diego with a bag that holds eight severed heads, which he's bringing to his superiors to prove that some troublesome rival mobsters are permanently out of the picture. When his bag gets accidentally switched at the airport, Tommy must track down his duffel bag and the 8 heads it contains.

Two policemen must join forces to take on an international drug- smuggling gang - one, an unorthodox Irish policeman and the other, a straitlaced FBI agent. Sergeant Gerry Boyle is an eccentric small-town cop with a confrontational and crass personality and a subversive sense of humor. A longtime policeman in County Galway, Boyle is a maverick with his own moral code. He has seen enough of the world to know there isn't much to it and has had plenty of time to think about it. When a fellow police officer disappears and Boyle's small town becomes key to a large drug trafficking investigation, he is forced to at least feign interest when dealing with the humorless FBI agent Wendell Everett assigned to the case.

Two con men try to settle their rivalry by betting on who can swindle a young American heiress out of $50,000 first.

Five hapless inner-city low-lifes attempt to burgle a pawnbroker's safe, but end up being plagued by bad luck.

When his mother eloped with an Italian opera singer, Louis Mazzini was cut off from her aristocratic family. After the family refuses to let her be buried in the family mausoleum, Louis avenges his mother's death by attempting to murder every family member who stands between himself and the family fortune. But when he finds himself torn between his longtime love and the widow of one of his victims, his plans go awry.

When a retiring assassin realizes that he is the target of a hit, he winds up back in the game going head to head with a gang of younger, ruthless killers.

Harry Mitchell is a successful Los Angeles manufacturer whose wife is running for city council. His life is turned upside down when three blackmailers confront him with a video tape of him with his young mistress and demand $100,000. Fearing that the story will hurt his wife's political campaign if he goes to the police, Harry pretends that he will pay the men, but does not follow through.

A delightful dramatic comedy, a buddy picture, and, for good measure, a heist film. Curmudgeonly old Frank lives by himself. His routine involves daily visits to his local library, where he has a twinkle in his eye for the librarian. His grown children are concerned about their father’s well-being and buy him a caretaker robot. Initially resistant to the idea, Frank soon appreciates the benefits of robotic support – like nutritious meals and a clean house – and eventually begins to treat his robot like a true companion. With his robot’s assistance, Frank’s passion for his old, unlawful profession is reignited, for better or worse.

When an experienced thief accidentally makes off with a Van Gogh, his partner is kidnapped by gangsters in pursuit of the painting, forcing the criminal to hatch a rescue plan.